Mental Health of Primary Caregivers With Children Having Intellectual Disability

Children with developmental disabilities put great impact not only on the lives of the children but also on the lives of their caregivers especially the family members. Fostering a child with intellectual disabilities resulted in increased risk of mental agony, frustration, stress, anxiety, depressive symptoms and other psychological problems among the primary caregivers. The worry about child's future, economic burden, lack of emotional or social support and excessive physical care put parents into psychological distress affecting their mental health. The present study is an attempt to assess and compare the mental health of primary caregivers having children with mild and moderate intellectual disability and parents having children with average intelligence. A multi group design was employed. A sample of 150 healthy parents (50 with mild intellectually disabled children, 50 with moderate intellectually disabled children & 50 having children with average intelligence), was administered Mental Health Inventory by Veit and Ware (1983). Data was analyzed by using one- way ANOVA followed by Tukey's post hoc test. Significant differences were evident on the domains of mental health i.e. on psychological distress and psychological well-being among primary caregivers having children with mild and moderate intellectual disability and parents having children with average intelligence.